A Russian spy ship has sunk off the Turkish coast after being breached in a collision with a freighter; all its crew were rescued, the Turkish coastal authority says. Russia confirmed earlier that the hull of the Liman, part of its Black Sea Fleet, had sustained a breach, with crew working to keep it afloat. The cause of the collision is unclear but fog was reported in the area. All 78[!] crew aboard the Liman were safely evacuated, the Turkish coastal authority said.

Note the big bales of bedding on deck

It collided with the Togo-registered Youzarsif H, a livestock carrier, reportedly 18 miles from the Turkish town of Kilyos on the Black Sea coast just north of the city of Istanbul, and had sunk by 11:48 GMT. The Youzarsif H was built in 1977, 81 metres in length and with a gross tonnage of 2,282 tonnes. She was presumably loaded as she was heading south to the Jordanian port of Aqaba where her poor wretched cargo was due to be discharged, probably to a gruesome ending.

Apart from breeding stock, my personal view is that no livestock should be transported by sea; it should be slaughtered in the country of its breeding and then exported as chilled or frozen meat.

The Liman, built in Gdansk, Poland, was launched in 1970 [so being some 47 years old, probably a rust-bucket]. Based at Sevastopol in Crimea, the territory annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014, it was a regular visitor to the Syrian port of Tartus for decades, the site notes. In 1999, the Liman made international headlines when it was deployed to the Mediterranean to monitor NATO operations against Yugoslavia.